Patients can be examined or treated by means of various types of medical equipment. For example, image-providing equipment for computer tomography (CT), MRI tomography (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET) or X-ray methods is available for examinations. For such examinations or treatments, electron-ray, lithotripsy or radiation therapy equipment, or simple operating tables may be employed. A patient who is to be treated or examined by means of such equipment is placed onto the patient placement device. The patient placement device can be fixedly connected with the respective equipment and in general consists of a patient support tabletop and a patient support device, on which the patient can be positioned and moved into the equipment. The patient support tabletop may also be a cot, stretcher, or the like. The patient is placed on a different support device while being transported to the patient placement device of the equipment or away from it, which can be moved from one location to another, for example from one type of equipment to another, by means of a patient transporting device, a so-called gurney.
A transfer of a patient, who may possibly be severely injured, between the patient support devices of the ambulance and the examination or treatment equipment can be potentially very hard on the patient and painful. Moreover, the transfer of the patient also places the involved medical personnel under a large bodily stress. Finally, such patient transfer can require the assistance of several people and uses up additional work time.
In order to avoid the transfer of a patient from one patient supporting device to another, it is known from DE 101 11 801 to employ a system consisting of several different types of medical equipment, as well as a single patient support device, wherein the patient support device can be separated from the respective patient placement device and can be connected to every other patient placement device. A board or a support plate, for example, can be provided as the patient support device, via which the patient can be placed while being prone.
The free interchange of the patient support device with the various types of examination/treatment equipment demands that the patient support device and the equipment be appropriately constructed in various ways. However, this results in difficulties in connection with MRI tomography. In general, the manufacturing materials which are normally used for producing patient support devices are not suitable for usage in MRI examination equipment. Instead, these patient support devices are mainly produced and designed for use in connection with other equipment, for example for X-ray procedures, and are made of carbon fiber materials. They typically must have a substantially high degree of transparency to X-rays for use in X-ray procedures. Other specific materials are usually employed for use with MRI equipment than for nearly all other examination or treatment equipment. MRI compatible materials must be non-conducting and completely non-magnetic, but may not be transparent to X-rays. Further, it is customary to place special signal-recording coils on the patient support device for MRI tomography on which the patient is placed in the same way as on cushions. These coils remain on the device when the MRI device is disconnected from the patient support table and may lead to disruptive image interferences when the device is connected to the table of a different examination device.
Up to now, patient support devices, which are intended to be used with both MRI equipment and other examination or treatment equipment, had to be developed from highly specialized materials as well as in the form of highly specialized support device structures. For example, X-ray patient support devices must not have any structural parts which would create interference shadows at defined X-ray entry angles, for example. However, this patient support device structural limitation makes it difficult to flexibly and adaptively address other demands made on the patient support device, for example opportunities for securing body parts of the patient in place or for attaching medical accessories.